1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to print control of moving a position of a non-print area when an image is printed.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, there is a line thermal transfer printer which uses a heat sensitive paper as a print paper, selectively drives plural heating elements arranged in the main scan direction, and performs printing like a dot line on the recording paper by transporting the recording paper in the sub scan direction.
In recent years, as input equipment such as a digital camera, a digital video camera, a scanner or the like which treats an image advances, a printer to which a thermal transfer method is applied is paid to attention as a print means.
That is, in an ink-jet printer, there are only binary options, i.e., one is to discharge ink droplets and the other is not to discharge ink droplets. Thus, the ink-jet printer intends to obtain apparent resolution and tonality by putting small ink droplets to a recording paper as controlling them in a method such as error diffusion method or the like. On the other hand, in the thermal transfer printer, since a controllable heat value can be easily changed in one pixel, a great number of tonalities can be set for one pixel. Thus, as compared with the ink-jet printer, the thermal transfer printer can obtain a smooth and high-quality image.
Moreover, since performance of a thermal head and performance of a recording paper material have been improved significantly, an image print of which finish quality does not pale beside that of a silver salt photograph can be obtained. For these reasons, the thermal transfer printer is paid to attention as a printer for a natural image in sync with the advancement of the digital camera in recent years.
On one hand, in the ink-jet printer, technique to reduce the size of an ink-droplet dot has advanced, whereby the printer capable of achieving higher-resolution printing also appears.
Consequently, for example, as shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-243327, a system in which such a printer as above is directly connected to a photographing apparatus such as a digital camera, a digital video camera or the like is proposed. Besides, as shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-65182, a system in which such a printer as above and a photographing apparatus are unified so that photographed image information is printed without a computer is also proposed.
However, in these conventional examples, in the case where the image photographed by the digital camera is directly printed out by the printer, when printing of no margin (i.e., marginless printing) is intended, this printing can be satisfactorily performed if an aspect ratio of a recording paper is the same as that of the image to be printed. On the other hand, if the aspect ratio of the recording paper is different from that of the image, it is necessary to perform the printing by cutting off a part of the image.
Thus, as a simple method to cope with such a case, there is a method to fix the portion to be cut off. For example, it is thought to decide to evenly cut off the top and bottom portions of the image without fail when this image is printed out. However, in this case, the top and bottom portions are indiscriminately cut off irrespective of the kind and content of the image, whereby there is possibly a fear that the portion intended to be really printed out is not printed.
Thus, it is intended to achieve a function, such as a function of an image processing application used in a personal computer, capable of designating an arbitrary area of the image on the digital camera. However, in such a case, operation members are limited as the digital camera becomes small in size, whereby a trouble that the printer becomes an interface which is complex and difficult for a user occurs. Therefore, there is a problem that the print system which is easy to be used for the user can not be provided in the conventional apparatus.
An object of the present invention is to provide a print control method and an image pickup apparatus capable of performing a print instruction, by which above-mentioned problems are dissolved.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a print control method and an image pickup apparatus capable of performing a print instruction, by which a user on the side of the image pickup apparatus can easily designate an area not to be printed on a recording paper.
Other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the following explanation based on the attached drawings and the appended claims.